Postcards from the Creative Journey

464 More Things to Look For

Numbers at the boatyard

t took three days and four or five sessions at Dakota Creek, but I finally am comfortable with the place, where everything is located and more importantly, what my projects are for this location. Having this level of comfort in this one location meant quite a bit when we went back to the yard this afternoon. I knew what I was looking for and I was able to find photographs that would assist the current projects.

The current projects discovered at Dakota Creek are a series of abstract designs using new bronze propellers for the MV Salish, workplace tools and personalizing the workplace, a little design type project showing numbers in the workplace and finally, the project we started this morning.

Every Shop Should have a trophy deer.

Propellers are beautiful before they hit the water.

Brooks and I talked this morning about creating new photographs out of smaller photographs. The thought we had was since the shipyard is a place where large ships are created out of many small parts, why not create a photographic scene from many smaller images? We started with the premise from my Labyrinth project but decided to go away from the “believably unbelievable” to avoiding rectangles completely.

From discussion to getting a few examples created from start to current state was about three hours. It’s amazing what advantages digital cameras and processing have. What we did in a few hours would have been almost technically impossible just a few years ago. Now we can do that in less than half a day. We will try to carry this thought process through to other locations on this year’s safari.

463 Image Selection for a Long Term Project (LTP)

The Shoshone Building, Doors and a Broom

Don’t feel bad about using an image in more than once. (Recycling is good, even for your photographs.) If you have a photograph in one chapter of your LTP and it fits in with another chapter later in the project and makes the new chapter better, add it to the new project.

Think of this analogy: Your photographs are to your LTP what words are to an author. Use them whenever and wherever you need to use them to complete that part of your project. If the image is good, it will find its way into your project.

Some images in an early chapter could be the seed image for a whole new chapter of your LTP. You could inspire yourself to take the project in a different direction, or that image could unlock an entirely new aspect of your LTP or it may be the seed of an entirely new project. It would be a shame not to consider it because it was published as part of an earlier project. (This image was originally used in the Shoshone Building folio, made an appearance in the Passages and Portals folio and there’s a broom in the photo, too. That broom might be useful in the future, too.)

The interesting thing about working on long term projects is that you change along with the project. Your technique improves, your aesthetic vision for the project becomes clearer and the materials you have to work with improve. The longer you keep with the project, the more complete it will be.

462 By The Numbers

Hull Number

Construction is a technical business. Pieces are measured, cut, fabricated, assembled all according to drawings. Measurements are necessary to insure the thousands of parts will actually fit together to create a machine that must be strong enough to preserve the lives of the captain, crew and cargo on the ocean. Numbers are everywhere. On paper, steel, wood, metal, plastic, written on the walls, painted on concrete and even welded on hulls. The numbers are everywhere and are there to make sure that those that construct and operate the ships can do so safely.

Plimsol Numbers and shadow

Tugboat Reflections

461 I’ll Be Right Back

Cutting Diamond Tread Plate

After a few days of wandering around the boat yard I think I am beginning to put a handle on just what it is I think I am seeing. Sight is evolving into vision. The boatyard is a big, industrial place where humans can get lost. How does one describe the humanity of the place in such an environment? I think I discovered this when I looked at how the workers arrange their workspace and how they leave their tools when they head out to lunch, or leave for the day. Taking this huge industrial mechanized space and leaving their own imprint on that space is how humanity is preserved.

We entered the places after hours, after the day’s work has been completed. This is how the work space was left at the end of the day. The craftsmen will be right back tomorrow.

Cut off Saw and tools

Grinder and Shapes

460 A Question of Scale

Propeller for a Ferry Boat

This year’s photo safari with Brooks Jensen is starting off in the Dakota Creek shipyard. It has been decades since I was in a large industrial landscape. To be surrounded by large ships that are out of their normal environment was unsettling. But then, I remembered that I too was out of my normal element. The scale of the place is almost intimidating. There is no way I can get far enough away from these ships to photograph them as a whole and there may not be a way to photograph the ships from the vantage point of the dry dock. The question of scale and distance will have to be solved if I am to make something other than some snapshots of the yard.

What to do in the meantime? When thrown into a new environment with a camera there is a period of adjustment before you finally figure out what story or insight you can glean from the new surroundings. It’s a question of finding something I can manage initially to get my creative pump primed. I need to begin working on a scale I can deal with with a subject I can manage with light I can use to my advantage.

We’re here in Anacortes for a few days. I imagine by the time we leave, I hope to have answered the question of scale.

Later today (September 1)...

Here is a concept on the scale. At the very bottom left of the photograph, Brooks is photographing the propellers - again. I will do so again because they are so wonderful. At least this shows the problem of scale and subject matter.